photo by Karen Laslo
Evicted campers leave their site after a sweep.
by Leslie Layton / commentary
posted Jan. 15
A settlement agreement in the lawsuit related to the city’s treatment of unhoused people, signed Friday by a federal judge, could end the spectacle of chaotic mass evictions that stranded campers who had nowhere to go.
Early last year, a newly-installed City Council began a series of sweeps in parks, near waterways and on patches of grass on public land.
Journalists watched as workers came in atop tractors, rumbling through encampments where displaced people had pitched tents and had failed to move their few belongings to who knows where – until we weren’t allowed to watch.